Internships & Trade Show PR




With the top-rated education and real-world driven program content, balancing an added internship during the school year is an accepted fate for all 2012 PR grad students. Will I get one first semester or second? Will it be paid? Is it the coolest one I can find? Am I limiting myself by committing too soon? Will anyone even want me to be their intern? It is these questions that race through every one of us until we secure our fate and say goodbye to our extra days of weekend we’ve previously used to catch up schoolwork…and maybe a bit of sleep. 

Luckily, I managed to rope an internship fairly early and am now the ‘Friday’ intern at a small, yet modest PR agency. With that I was thrown into the world of tradeshow PR at the hype of its season. There was a fast learning curve that was thankfully cushioned by the aligning course work we had to complete.  Below lists all of the cool jobs I’ve got to work on during my exposure to  the PR Trade Show world and shows the real life experience I’ve had that I learned how to properly execute from classwork this year:

The Hamilton Home Show, Hamilton ON.
·         Counting down the center stage chefs and relaying their message through a microphone
·         Writing messages about the featured chefs, promoting their businesses
·         Assisted with organizing radio-cut ins and media training vendors
·         Ate lots of delicious foods

The Everything to Do with Sex Show, Toronto ON.
·         Greeting press and ensuring they have access to the show as well as any interviews they want
·         Following up on whether the press that attended covered the event
·         Emailing back any press that need press passes on the day of
·         Monitoring any coverage online

The Season’s Christmas Show, Mississauga ON.
·         Emailing the media list on setting up any interviews for the show
·         Researching contacts for the media list
·         Putting press on the media press pass list for the day of

The internship experience has shown to me that despite the fact you will sit in the same seat for almost nine hours every day at school, there is a real world out there that needs those skills you learn. Thus the program gives you an opportunity to see if you really want to do PR every day for the rest of your life, or to figure out exactly what stream you want to take in the industry like Trade Shows. Although not much, seeing the classwork used in real world situations and in action is a cool thing to see from start to finish. It helps with the sometimes overwhelming work you subject yourself to in the program, and justifies that you indeed are taking the right steps into the PR world. 



 

Comments